


Slaves of War

by Snootiegirl



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars--The Clone Wars, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Battle fatigue, Clone squad, Gen, PTSD, Psychological Warfare, War, original novel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 10:32:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5663098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snootiegirl/pseuds/Snootiegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the heat of the Clone Wars, Clone trooper Scatter leads his squad into a skirmish that has none of the hallmarks of typical battles. As his team advances into the jungle on the planet Chandri, more and more strange occurrences leave Scatter and his team wondering if they'll ever leave this planet alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slaves of War

**Author's Note:**

> An original piece of work, with original characters. Technically this is fanfiction because I am in no way authorized by Disney or LucasArts to write it. But I plan it to be novel length and not have any canon characters.
> 
> FEEDBACK is much appreciated. This is a new direction for me, content-wise, so I'm interested to hear if you enjoy it, what works for you, what doesn't work, and what I can improve. Thanks!

"Trooper!" the Jedi called out across the hangar bay. Scatter double-timed to his General.

"Yes, sir," he said as he slapped a crisp salute. He was new enough to still feel intimidated by the Jedi when he had to face them personally and alone. But his training would stand him in good stead, he had no doubts about that. Mandalorians weren't intimidated by much. Neither would he be.

"Inform the Commander that we deploy at 0600 hours," the Jedi told Lieutenant Scatter, CT2992, in that strangely serene Jedi tone that could pierce through a firefight as well as over the din of machinery and Clone voices.

"Yes, sir," Scatter responded as he trotted away to find the Commander, another Jedi. A Padawan Learner. If you asked Scatter, he was a youngling and shouldn't be on the front lines of anything but the mess hall. But it wasn't his call, so he tracked the kid down.

Technically, the child was older than Scatter and the whole battalion. Growth acceleration skewed the impression civilians had of Clones. They appeared grown men, but there was still aspects of the child within all of them. Inexperience seemed to be the most often repeated.

As he walked back across the wide expanse of the cruiser's hangar, Scatter watched the buzz of activity around him out of the corners of his eyes. Clones developed the ability to walk straight ahead while keeping a close watch on the perimeter very early in life. It was helpful during exercises as well as during late night forays into forbidden areas of the Kaminoan training complex.

Scatter was proud of only being caught out of his bunk after lights-out once. And it hadn't been his fault. Except for the company he had chosen to keep. Gull had always been clumsy where Scatter was sure-footed. But Gull had also been his best friend. They used to say they had been friends since the DNA-chamber.

With these thoughts came the regrets. Scatter ruthlessly squelched the memories and the emotions. He had more important duties than indulging in his own weaknesses. What was done was done. A soldier lives from moment to moment. He learns from his mistakes; he doesn't dwell on them.

Finally, Scatter spotted the Padawan sitting with his legs tucked underneath him--very much like a child--on a pile of supply crates. Scatter noticed the crates were blaster replenishments that had just been brought onboard two rotations earlier. He was a little surprised they hadn't been stowed yet--clone efficiency being what it was--but then this upcoming mission seemed to require every man focus on things other than stocking new equipment.

Scatter marched stiffly up to the Padawan and snapped a salute.

"Message from the General, Commander," he reported. "Deployment at 0600." He stood at attention in front of the boy, who was very intently, but calmly, polishing his lightsaber hilt with a small cloth.

"Mm-hmm," he murmured to the Sargent, without taking his eyes off of the weapon.  
Scatter saluted once again and retreated crisply without further acknowledgement. 

He understood the devotion to your weapon. He made sure his were in working order before each deployment as well. However, he sensed there was something else behind the Jedi's treatment of him. One more mystery which Scatter seemed to be collecting but which he had no time to solve.

His mind strayed back to the stack of crates and the weapons in them. More weapons most likely meant more incoming troops. More troops for more engagements. More work. More death.

Scatter hadn't been assigned to this battle group for very long. Truth be told, he hadn't been in any battle group long. He was a shiny. New deployment from Kamino, two months prior. But he had leadership and tactical training. That qualified him to lead a squad, even if the squad members had more field experience that he did. He gave orders; they obeyed them.

His first command had met with considerable losses at the hands of the Seppies. Scatter had been the only one of his squad who had escaped. And he had had to serve a week in bacta fluid in exchange for this favor from the galaxy.

Now Scatter was assigned to a new battle group in a different sector. The sector where he had lost his brothers and been injured had been completely ceded to the Separatists. The HoloNet was ripe with stories about the futility of the campaign from the beginning. Scatter didn't have an opinion one way or the other.

Officially.

When he had first stepped off of the troop transport onto his new assigned ship--the Jedi Cruiser _Constellation_ \--Scatter had lined up with the rest of his temporary transport squad. 

The General in charge of the _Constellation_ battle group was a human Jedi, an older man who had obviously lived a lifetime before war came to the galaxy. His genteel manner was strange to Scatter who had only experienced the rough tutelage of the Mandalorians and the indifference of the long-necked Kaminoans. But the tiredness of his eyes said that he was anything but content with the state of war.

"Welcome to the _Constellation_ , gentlemen," Jedi General T'ar Selkin intoned. He had a voice that could command thousands but made each man feel as if he addressed him personally. "We are in the process of patrolling the Chandri system, monitoring Separatist activity in this sector. We expect to be engaging the enemy within forty-eight hours. So sort your gear and report to your Commanders. Dismissed!"

Scatter hefted his gear and followed the crowd to the barracks. Every Starcruiser had the same layout, so they all knew the way without needing directions. He stowed his gear and looked around at the other new arrivals. He wondered if any of them would be a part of his squad or if he would be the only new one.

As it turned out, it was the second situation. And now--two weeks after he first arrived onboard--he was deploying with his new group at 0600 tomorrow.

Deployment message delivered from his General to his Commander, Scatter returned to his previous activity of checking his gear and making sure his armor was in good condition. No sense in giving the Seppies a leg up by wearing substandard gear into battle. Scatter even popped on his bucket and ran a diagnostic on his HUD.

His eye movements were carefully orchestrated to control the climate, read-outs, and view of his heads-up display. Every Clone was taught these techniques when they started on their live fire training exercises. And every clone who was smart made sure that their bucket was finely tuned to his own face, no matter each of them technically has the same face.

Scatter knew that there had to be more than one trooper who had not been as diligent with his HUD and paid the price at the precise moment he needed the tightest control over his view. Every trooper knew that his helmet could be a set of blinders or a three-sixty view of the world.

And that was true of the radio as well as the display.

Scatter opened up his com with a rapid series of blinks. The members of his squad all reported in one-by-one. Each of the six of them would run these exercises as many times as any one of them deemed them necessary. No one would deny a brother the opportunity to feel secure. However fleeting that was.

These checks, in a long list of other checks, done, Scatter had a few spare moments to turn back to see his Jedi Commander still sitting on the weapons. But now the boy's eyes were closed and his hands were still. Meditating, Scatter guessed.

Scatter removed his helmet and set it in his lap.

It wasn't Scatter's place as a Clone trooper to speculate on the personalities of the Jedi. He wasn't supposed to do anything but take and execute orders. But he couldn't help himself from surreptitiously studying this young Jedi, this student of the Force.

 

The Jedi were a puzzle to him. They claimed to all subscribe to the same doctrine and pursue the same goals, but individually, their demeanor and behavior showed a great deal of variation, from what Scatter had observed in his three-month deployment.

There were those who called the Clones by their numbers, some by their names, and some just by the moniker Trooper, as if there was no essential difference between the white-clad bodies. One was the same as the next. This Padawan Learner seemed to fall into this last category, based on Scatter's previous experience.

The Jedi were so alien to the Clones. They had loyalty without kinship. They had abilities that weren't deliberately bred or flash trained into them. And they had history. They had respect. They had purpose. A greater purpose than this war.

He knew that some of the Clones had been taught the Mandalorian culture, claimed it as their own. He had had some exposure to it. But no one had personally taken an interest in really imparting anything to Scatter. It was more a situation of dropped words and philosophy that shaped Scatter's training along with the prescribed rounds of combat, tactics, and strategy training.

Scatter had heard a few of his class discussing how the Mandos took in anyone of any bloodline who lived by the Mando creed. This was similar to the Jedi who weren't families by any stretch. But there was a bond between members based on their beliefs and actions.

The Jedi had a culture that spanned species too. Although the two Jedi on this cruiser were humans, Scatter had briefly seen other species wearing the distinctive though plain cloaks and tunics of the Order during his previous deployments. 

He wondered if there were ever disagreements between Jedi if two particular species didn't naturally get along. Clones all got along until something happened to disrupt the relationship--usually something to do with someone's ego. It was a very in-the-present existence.

The Padawan learner's name was Charo Powdrell, from Alderaan, didn't seem to have much attention for the troopers surrounding him and moving like a river around a big rock. They parted and flowed and reunited on the other side. Commander Powdrell looked to Scatter like he was about 17 or 18 standard years which meant he had been a Padawan before the war started. He wondered how the kid felt about living on a starcruiser. Wondered where he had lived before the war.

But Scatter was too intimidated to try any friendly overtures toward the Jedi. The young man seemed to discourage any by his posture and tone of voice anyway. Scatter cast one more quick look at the lightsaber which reminded him of some similarities between Clones and Jedi.

Deprived of a recognizable childhood, trained to follow orders and make their bodies into tools or weapons, each group operated on a similar dynamic forged through experience. 

Jedi and Clone families were structured groups, each member with a defined place that changed with major milestones--knighting, promotion, death. Members who could be replaced at any moment. No other kinds of families would be given no time to mourn a lost member, nor expected not to need to do so.

Uncertain futures were another similarity. Clones weren't supposed to live beyond their usefulness, either the war or enforcement and policing afterward. But the way the war had been going, sometimes a Clone felt relieved to be mown down in battle instead of faced with a non-prescribed future.

Three squares a day, enough clothing for all occasions, free travel around the galaxy--there were worse ways to spend a life. Stuck in a mining colony, being sold into slavery, dying of starvation because of a drought on some di'kut-forsaken rock in the Outer Rim would be worse. Dying for the Republic at least meant something. Didn't it?

During peacetime, Jedi could probably expect relatively serene lives punctuated by the occasional instance of tense negotiation or short-lived civil skirmishes, ending in the peace of the Temple, satisfied with a life of service to the greater good.

But now, during war, when Jedi were Generals, and the average age of a Knight dropped by years out of the necessity to replace fallen Jedi, the length of one's future became something of speculation. As did the Greater Good.

Scatter realized he had been daydreaming when he looked up to find Command Powdrell standing in front of him with a slight frown between his eyes. Scatter immediately snapped to attention and saluted crisply.

"Trooper," Powdrell pronounced as he nodded Scatter into parade rest. Inwardly, Scatter flinched. Was he in trouble?

"Yes, sir," he responded.

The Jedi regarded him for a moment in silence, making Scatter even more nervous. He kept a calm visage though and a firm stance.

"What's your name?" the young man asked Scatter.

"CT-7996, sir," he replied as he had been trained. He kept his eyes trained over the Jedi's head as he spoke. So to be in his eye line, the Padawan stood up to his full height. Even though he was young, he was as tall as the Clones.

"And what do your friends call you?" he inquired again, this time a small smile touched his lips.

Scatter was thrown. That's not how superior officers usually asked for his nickname--all the Clone 'names' being nicknames since they chose them themselves. "Uh," he stuttered. "Scatter, sir."

"Scatter," Powdrell repeated. "Thanks for the message. And welcome to the _Constellation_." Then he turned, hooking his lightsaber to his belt as he did, and strode away on his long legs.

Scatter didn't know what to think. He was shocked. Powdrell had known he was a new trooper. He had recognized a difference between Scatter and all the others. Maybe he wasn't the kind of person who saw his troopers as battle fodder after all.

Maybe there's more to Jedi than I know, he thought.


End file.
